


Second Skin

by betts



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Bullying, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-14 01:31:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16903566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: Hux needs a bodyguard. He's not happy about it.





	Second Skin

**Author's Note:**

> For the kylux cantina prompt "second skin - a boundary between one's body and everything outside."
> 
> I'm moving my prompt-fill/ficlets over from tumblr. Originally posted sometime last year.

There was no reason Hux needed a bodyguard. It was beyond overkill, and moreover it was  _embarrassing._ The man was a cliche, all six-foot-something-obnoxious of him, from his stoic, unmovable expression to his goddamn aviators (that he wore inside, for godsakes) to the well-tailored suit and spit-shine black shoes. He even had a clear, coiled wire running from his ear to a mic pack somewhere on his person. Hux didn’t want to know how many guns were on him. 

What Hux  _did_ want to know was how to measure the area under a curve, but it was difficult to concentrate in AP calc with a classroom of his peers all wondering why there was some grim reaper wannabe standing at the back of class. Hux could actually feel the eyes on him as they put two and two together: some rich kid son of a general, post-terrorist attack in a fifty mile radius — he  _would_  need a bodyguard, Hux could hear them think. Followed by, what? Envy? End then, of course, disdain. 

A boy named Jeff, Hux’s serial bully, leaned over from the desk next to him and whispered, “Got your ass beat so much Daddy bought you a bodyguard?”

“Shut up, Jeff,” Hux replied, and buried himself further in his notes. The teacher, thankfully, pretended to ignore the hulking form watching the proceedings, having been given a note by Hux’s father in the recent past. 

Jeff looked back at the bodyguard and then toward Hux again. “What’ll he do if I do this?” he asked, and reached up to flick Hux’s ear. It stung and Hux winced. He could feel the tip of his ear turn bright red.

For a second, he envisioned the bodyguard “escorting” Jeff out of the classroom and beating him to a pulp. No such thing happened, but Hux’s heart began beating a little faster as he heard slow, heavy boot steps on the linoleum. He glanced up to see the bodyguard had re-positioned himself by the window, a foot away from Jeff’s desk, and Jeff had gone ashen, suddenly and intently focused on his notes.

Hux looked to the bodyguard, who looked back at him and gave a small nod.

* * *

“Do you have to follow me everywhere?” Hux asked. He closed his locker and swung his backpack over his shoulder. 

“Yes,” the bodyguard said. He took the backpack from Hux, yanked it open, and inspected the contents.

Hux made an irritated noise in his throat and said, “No one is going to put a bomb in my bookbag.”

The bodyguard handed it back. Hux took it from him and swing it over his shoulder again. “This is so unnecessary,” he muttered as he headed toward the exit. The hallways were empty because he had waited until well after the final bell had rung, not wanting to be seen with this gentle giant fuck. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Ren,” the bodyguard said.

“Ren? is that like Cher? Beyonce? Prince? Are you a secret diva under all that well-tailored wool?”

“Kylo,” Ren amended.

“Christ, forget I asked.”

* * *

“That’s it, I’m drawing the line here,” Hux said, his hand on his bedroom door. His father was off on business somewhere, and normally he would have had the whole house to himself, blessedly, silently alone. Instead, Ren had stood in the kitchen as Hux cooked, the dining room as he ate, the hallway as he showered, and now his bedroom.

“I received orders to —"

“I don’t care what orders you received, you are not going to watch me sleep.”

To this Ren said nothing. Hux asked, “What about you? When do you sleep?”

“Shift change in eight hours.”

“Where will you go?”

For the first time, Ren appeared uncomfortable. He shifted the weight on his feet. “A nearby hotel.”

“And who is replacing you? For how long?”

“Phasma. She’ll be here for eight hours and then I’ll come back.”

“Can you at least stand in the hallway while I sleep? Or sit down or something? Do you have to be standing ominously in a corner  _all the time?”_

“I received orders to —"

“I don’t care what orders you received, dammit. I will not have my sleep interrupted by some hulking buffoon wearing sunglasses indoors at midnight.”

The only indication Ren was affected by Hux’s outburst was a slight twitch of his lips. Then he turned on his heel and left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

* * *

When Hux awoke, a platinum blonde version of Ren was standing in the hallway. She had to check the bathroom before he took a shower, the kitchen before he made himself breakfast, his closet before he changed into his day clothes. She was just as insufferable as Ren, but when Hux tried to talk to her, she said even fewer words.

By the time Hux was on his way to school, he thought he might have actually missed Ren.

* * *

Ren returned after the school day let out, waiting outside an Escalade while Phasma escorted Hux out of the building. Hux climbed in and Ren closed the door. Phasma took a separate Escalade back, presumably, to the hotel.

“I’m sorry I called you a hulking buffoon,” Hux said. 

Ren didn’t reply, and the drive home was silent.

* * *

“Take off your glasses,” Hux told Ren. They were at the dining table while Hux was doing his homework, calculus textbook and notebooks scattered around him while Ren stood by the sliding glass doors, occasionally glancing out of them into the darkened backyard.

Ren, who hadn’t said a single word all evening, took off his glasses, but silently. 

Ren’s eyes looked like the rest of him — as if he’d been chiseled from stone. 

“You’re remarkably attractive,” Hux said. 

Ren’s lips twitched again, like they had the night before, but otherwise he gave no indication he had heard Hux speak.

* * *

Days turned into weeks, and Hux’s father still hadn’t returned home. Ren and Phasma rotated bodyguard duty without an end in sight. Some days, Hux ignored them completely. Others, he pestered them, tried to get them to react, anything. Eventually he grew to find their constant presence comforting, specifically Ren.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, calculus again, and Phasma left the classroom in a hurry, heavy boots storming the linoleum. The students attended en masse to the newfound absence, and Hux pretended not to be concerned, as if this had been planned. Had something happened? Where was Ren? It was hours before a scheduled shift change.

The bell rang ten minutes later, and Hux was still missing a bodyguard. He hurried out of the room toward his locker to change out his books. The hair on the back of his neck prickled but he ignored it. He just felt exposed was all. He was used to someone being at his six all the time. He was fine by himself for a few minutes until Ren could arrive.  _If_ Ren would arrive.

Jeff slammed Hux’s locker shut. The door smashed Hux’s fingers and he gasped and pulled them out. “What the fuck, Jeff?”

“Baby’s finally without a sitter,” Jeff said. He had two guys with him, and the hallway was starting to clear out. 

Hux adjusted his textbooks in his arms and tried to push past them. “I have class.”

Jeff put a hand up and prevented him from moving forward. Then he lifted a heavy arm and brought it down on Hux’s books so they fell to the ground, all of Hux’s notes jammed in the pages flying out. On impulse, Hux knelt down to shuffle them back together, but Jeff raised his leg and shoved Hux over. Hux went sliding to the other side of the hallway, his back thudding into the opposite set of lockers.

Hux struggled to get to standing again, but Jeff put his boot on Hux’s chest. “Let me up, Jeff —"

Jeff and his friends were laughing as they kept Hux on the ground, kicking him lightly and keeping him off balance so he couldn’t get up. They shoveled his possessions all over the hallway, dumped his pencil bag, trashed his still-open locker, and Hux was unable to do anything —

There was a slamming sound, followed by a shrill cry. Hux looked up from the ground where he had been covering his head with his arms. Ren was suddenly there, his forearm against Jeff’s throat. Jeff was pinned to the lockers, squirming, trying to fight back uselessly. His friends were already halfway down the hallway, running at full speed.

“Don’t come near him again, do you understand?” Ren asked.

Jeff tried to nod, but struggled with Ren’s arm crushing his windpipe.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” Jeff wheezed.

Ren let him go, and Jeff tripped over his own feet before running off.

Hux sat up, and Ren extended a hand to him. He wasn’t wearing his usual uniform — just the pants, undershirt, and white overshirt, unbuttoned. No tie. No suit jacket. No sunglasses. Even his mic was dangling over his shoulder instead of in his ear.

“Where did Phasma go?” Hux asked, taking Ren’s hand and standing. They both knelt back down to begin collecting Hux’s belongings.

“That’s classified,” Ren said. 

“Is she alright?”

“Yes.”

“Are you staying with me the rest of the night?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

* * *

At dinner, Hux said, “You know you can sit down.’

“Against orders,” Ren replied.

“New orders. Please sit down. And for godsakes, eat something.” Hux put a second plate of food across from him at the table.

Ren finally sat down.

* * *

“You can stay in here tonight,” Hux said, hand on the doorknob of his bedroom. 

Ren gave him a blank look that was more of a question than an actual expression. 

“I’m a little on edge after what happened this afternoon.”

Ren nodded once and resumed his original place by Hux’s bedroom window. 

Hux climbed into bed and closed his eyes. It was like Ren wasn’t even there; Hux couldn’t hear his breathing or any slight shifting of clothes. He was tempted to speak, to ask some question into the dark of night, but stopped himself. His mind grew scattered with tiredness, and he imagined Ren watching him, all night long, keeping all the bad things away. He remembered how swiftly Ren had reacted this afternoon, the flurry of his sudden non-uniformed appearance. Hux could feel himself getting sleepily hard at the thought — Ren protecting him, Ren getting angry for him.

He shoved the covers down to his feet and kicked them aside. “I’m hot,” he muttered, then sat up and took his shirt off. He knew he was tenting his boxers, and in the moonlight it was probably obvious, but Ren didn’t react at all. Hux grasped himself over the fabric of his shorts and let out a little moan.

“What are your orders now?” Hux whispered as he reached under the band of his boxers and stroked himself. He looked at the dark shadow watching him, could feel the tension rolling off of Ren, the focus of his entire perception zeroed in on Hux’s movements.

“Whatever you tell me to do,” Ren replied. There was a strain in his voice that wasn’t normally there.

“I want you to kiss me.”

"Needs to be an order."

"Kiss me."

Ren sat hesitantly on the edge of the bed and pressed his lips to Hux's. He was infuriatingly gentle and controlled with it, like everything else, so Hux reached up with his free hand to grab Ren’s hair and make the kiss messier. Rougher. 

He took Ren’s hand and put it on his cock, where Ren continued what Hux had started and stroked him in his massive fist. He was silent about it, no moans or heavy breathing, surprisingly steady even though Hux was biting his bottom lip and sucking, panting against his mouth, arching up into his touch.

“I’m —" Hux began, but Ren ate his words by kissing him again, and Hux came hard into Ren’s hand.  

“Sleep here tonight, in my bed, with me,” Hux said, panting, heart climbing down from its thousand beats per minute. “I’ll feel safer.”


End file.
